Podcast:
Crazy Town 86. Escaping Growthism: Wendigo Economics, Mystery Houses, and Becoming the Bear
By Asher Miller, Rob Dietz, Jason Bradford, originally published by Resilience.org May 1, 2024
"...Grow or die. It’s the governing principle of companies, investment portfolios, national economies, and even philanthropic foundations. Oh, and cancer. Asher, Jason, and Rob lay bare the stats on everything from human population, energy consumption, global GDP, greenhouse gas emissions, and the size of cars and cruise ships, before concluding that the global economy should be named after the Wendigo from Algonquian folklore. They turn to the natural world for examples of self-regulation, along with promising new economic frameworks and on-the-ground models, for how to end Wendigo economics before it ends us.
Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language."
Among the ancestors - By Chris Smaje, originally published by Small Farm Future April 29, 2024
"...Those who say that radical changes are necessary to meet the challenges of our times but can only treat with scorn the possibility that part of those changes might involve reversing the breakneck capitalist urbanization of recent decades do not strike me as people who are genuinely wrestling with the enormity of the changes upon us. They strike me as people who are desperately trying to cling to the status quo. ...I think the body of our collective contemporary world political economy is manifestly dying, while its mind in the form of its public culture is largely in denial. But the denial can’t mask the frailty of old age in our political economy. ...I believe a major thing that lies behind this is a fear of individual death..."
Eco-Collapse Hasn’t Happened Yet, But You Can See It Coming
By Stan Cox, originally published by TomDispatch April 30, 2024
"...In short, this sort of indefinite expansion of the U.S. and global economy into the distant future is doomed to fail, but not before it’s crippled our ecological and social systems. In its 2024 Global Resources Outlook, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) reported that humanity’s annual consumption of physical resources had grown more than threefold in the half-century since The Limits to Growth was published. Indeed, resource extraction is now rising faster than the Human Development Index, a standard measure of well-being. In other words, overextraction and overproduction while producing staggering wealth aren’t benefiting the rest of us..."
Domestic bliss at #LikaLodge : It’s #raining. I made a bed for the #Dog. #Bike is here too, covered a bit. #Fireplace & #tea. This morning I had breakfast at sunrise, under #Lipa / #Linden . Earlier I made a room-divider from a #patchwork curtain I got at #DeGrowth conference last year. Memories & fantasies… plus enjoying the moment!
@skyfaller It won't be tied to degrowth because Trump stupidly thinks this is a good way to grow our economy. I am not advocating this as a policy but it is ironic that it will actually result in less growth. I also don't believe anything will be done to explicitly encourage #degrowth.
The word "#Degrowth" seems to scare people so that they don't even stop to see what it's about -- AND it still leaves you in that framing of "growth at all costs".
We need to change the frame.
Think about children: they need to grow when they're little. Then, at some point, you want your child to stop growing: they grow UP. They need to start living according to a paradigm which is not all about growth.
Instead of the scary "degrowth", how about talking about growing up?
Did you know?
ALL of the climate models assume endless economic growth.
but what if we question that assumption?
"The results of the study suggest that fast #emissions reductions in countries like Australia could be enabled in scenarios characterized by reduced or zero #growth. Possibly even faster than in virtually all of the most ambitious mitigation scenarios described in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Scenario Database."